


tails

by CurryJolokia



Category: Magic Kaitou, Meitantei Conan | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Animal Ears, Cliffhangers, M/M, Tails
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-22
Updated: 2012-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-05 19:36:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CurryJolokia/pseuds/CurryJolokia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because I Always Wanted To Pull A "Loveless" on Aoyama, Except I'd Do It Better Because There Wouldn't Be That 'Abusive Power Balance' Issue</p>
            </blockquote>





	tails

**Author's Note:**

> For purposes of this fic, Aoko and Kaitou and Hakuba go to Teitan with the normal Teitan attendees; Heiji and Kazuha) are distributed as normal; and Akako is...somewhere else. ^^; It's just easier that way, as she irks me. ]

Strictly speaking, it could never be said of any Kid heist that it went "according to plan," since the plan was always to  _capture_  Kid and  _retrieve_  the evening's gemstone selection, not paw desperately at Kid's patent white heels and spats as a perfectly-timed gust of wind blew officers' caps from their heads and lifted Kid's glider into the air. Nor was it anywhere even  _approaching_  the plan for that gust of wind to take Kid himself off-guard, his evening's prize falling from his ungracefully grasping fingers to tumble thirty stories toward the pavement below.   
  
The night's gem, a museum specimen mottled with opaque sections of turquoise and dull white quartz throughout its glassy teal body, was roughly as big around as an ostrich's egg, and not at all like Kid's normal fare. Its imperfections and inclusions alone marked it as an oddity in his string of conquests where the only factors he seemed to consider were carat value and market price. Maybe that, a lack of concern for its value, was what made the Task Force hesitate as they watched it fall toward the street below, into the glare of floodlights and pulsing cruiser flashers. Maybe the use of their net cannons could have stopped, or slowed, the rock's descent. Or maybe they just would have unintentionally accomplished their original goal instead.   
  
As the stone dropped, Kid dropped with it, collapsing the glider and diving hard after the egg-shaped gem. But it had a head start on him, and was much more aerodynamic, even with his glider folded and body pointed straight down, striving after it with the wind whistling past his ears fast enough that it made a shrill hum, like breath across the mouth of a bottle. The crowd below screamed in anticipation, excited and simplistic.    
  
With ten stories left to go, Kid's hat finally succumbed to the power of the wind and was ripped from his head. The evening's cold air pulled through his hair instead, tousling it even further, as Kid blinked water out of his exposed eye, which strained against the wind. A space began to clear below him and the rock, officers pulling excited fangirls and curious children alike out of the way. The shouts of excitement turned to screams of fear as Kid did not pull out of the dive, his face fixed in an expression of determination as it came into view of the wondering crowd.   
  
Five stories left: there was a twenty-foot-wide space of blank asphalt beneath him and the gem, and he didn't have any more time. If he kept going, they'd be scraping not only the gem, but Kid himself, off the pavement. The screams of police sirens filtered into his awareness for the first time since he began his dive. There was nothing for it.   
  
Kid held his monocle to his face with one hand and hit the switch on his glider with the other, the jolt in his stomach equalling the sudden, blunt pain of bruises across his shoulders and rib cage as the glider caught the wind and punched upward, dragging a queasy Kid along with it. Expression betraying none of the sudden pain, Kid drew his arm up to cover his face and steered the glider away from the sheer glass wall of windows facing him, banking hard to keep from colliding with the skyscraper that he'd just dived the height of. In that same second, officers barked commands to the crowd - "Cover your faces!" - and a crystalline shatter erupted behind Kid, punctuated with rising screams from the shocked and excited crowd. Ready to make good his escape, after an apology to the museum -- there were good street lamps along this block, with big flat tops to stand on -- Kid was torn from his concentration one moment later, as a pained, warbling cry went up from a single throat.   
  
Turning his banking curve into a full half-circle, Kid pulled the glider around again, ignoring the protests from his bruised torso, and coasted up to a streetlamp on the far side of the avenue. Perching there in a crouch, one ankle extended behind himself to curl around the throat of the streetlamp and help him balance, Kid folded the glider and looked over the heads of the crowd to the center of the cleared circle, where a small girl sat cradling an even smaller puppy.    
  
The little thing's brown fur was matted dark with syrupy red-black liquid, which flowed from a wound at the side of its neck. The girl was covered in her pet's blood, wailing uncontrollably, and two officers at the edge of the circle were engaged in holding back a frantically struggling woman who looked to be the child's mother. Another officer knelt near the girl, doing his best to remove the dog from her arms and simultaneously to avoid disturbing the fragments of the gem which covered the open circle of asphalt in a blast pattern that extended past its edges into the fringe of the hovering crowd. More officers worked that fringe, pushing onlookers back, encouraging them to disperse; the wail of an ambulance could be heard from several streets away.   
  
_Jugular,_  Kid thought dumbly, barely noticing when Task Force members, urged on by Nakamori not to abandon their duty in the face of tragedy, climbed on each other's shoulders to grab at the hem of his cape.  _Shard of the gem. Killed him instantly. Probably._  For a moment, Kid couldn't tear his eyes from the red and pink and brown of the blood and the girl and the dog. Then his Poker Face recovered, and took stock of his situation.   
  
_Others probably cut too._  Kid scanned the crowd again. It took him all of three seconds to locate two women with fresh blood on them; one across her cheek, another across the back of her hand. The man hovering over that second woman had a wound on his shoulder, as well, bleeding through the sleeve of his business shirt. Kid didn't need to look further.   
  
Standing, Kid made sure the glider was well-tucked away, everything in order for a second launch; brushed his gloved hands down the front of his suit jacket; and sighed briefly. Pulling a spare top hat from inside the sleeve of his jacket, Kid popped it on his head and turned his attention to the Task Force members below him, who seemed taken aback by the sudden attention.   
  
"Hup!" Kid hopped from the head of the lamp to the top of the post that supported it, giving himself an extra two or three feet of altitude, and touched the brim of his hat as he gave his onlookers a slight nod. "If someone could please include an obituary for that girl's puppy in tomorrow's papers, I would greatly appreciate it," he murmured to them. Then, louder, Kid addressed the crowd.   
  
"Ladies and Gentlemen! It was not my intent to cause any harm to any of you good people! My apology is sincere, and though my restitution cannot make up for the loss of a life, it will unwaveringly be delivered. Wait for it!" Then he tossed a smoke bomb down into the midst of the Task Force members below him and glided away, the stretched fabric of his cape glittering faintly, studded with sharp, tiny slivers of crystal.   
  
***   
  
The next morning, Kuroba Kaito had a lot more things to worry about than getting slivered crystal out of his costume, or even making restitution for the life of the small brown puppy that he'd killed. A quick listen to the morning news radio confirmed what he'd already discovered in the privacy of his own bedroom. Standing in front of his full-length bedroom mirror, Kid again studied himself critically. If he stood relatively close to the mirror, facing it straight-on, everything looked normal, save for the way that his black cotton boxers were riding too low on his slim hips. If he backed up a step, however, so that he could see the crown of his head...   
  
Kaito cocked one eyebrow. One floppy, silky-soft ear perked up, swiveling toward the sounds of breakfast coming from downstairs. He cocked the other brow, and the ear on that side perked instead, tilting toward light strains of birdsong coming in from his open window. Kaito sighed, rubbing his temples, and his furry ears drooped, melting in with the rich chocolate shades of his hair. Unused to the sensation of his own curly hair pushing into the soft pink hollows of his new ears, Kaito reached up and pawed at his hair, trying to brush it out of the way, tuck his ears underneath it, stand them up so they didn't get prickled by the unruly waves of it -  _anything._  It only took a few minutes for him to admit defeat (again), and he sighed and slumped down to sit on the edge of his bed.   
  
\--And jumped up again immediately, yelping like he'd sat on a hot burner. Ruefully, Kaito reached around to the small of his back, and rubbed soothingly at the base of the short, perky brown tail that had arrived around the same time as his ears, at about three in the morning, between one self-recriminating sleepless rant and another. Rooted in the dimple just above the curve of his ass, his tail could be hidden under  _nothing_ , too perky and stiff to be managed, either bent down between the cheeks of his ass, or folded sideways into the waistband of his boxers. Kaito knew. He'd already tried every possible concealment method twice over, and all he'd gotten for it was a pain in the...well, tail.   
  
With a sigh, Kaito reached for his cell phone, intending to call off of school, and already had his hand closed around the device when it began to vibrate in his hand. Checking the caller ID, he flipped it open.   
  
"Hello?"   
  
"Oh. I'm sorry, I thought I'd dialed Kuroba-kun's cell number..." Aoko's light, startled voice brought him back to the present, and Kaito stopped glaring at his once-perfect rear end in the mirror for long enough to register what was the problem. Coughing once, he adjusted his voice and tried again.   
  
"Hello? Aoko?"   
  
"Kaito, there you are. Why did Jii-chan pick up your cell phone?"   
  
"Oh, ah, that was - How are you, Aoko? Pretty early to be calling."   
  
"Kaito, I - I just needed to -" She broke off, paused, and then uttered a growl that, even diluted through the phone lines, made Kaito instinctively think of flinching away from mop handles and the like. "That  _stupid_  Kaitou Kid, I'm gonna - and when I get ahold of him, I'm gonna beat him up and then my  _Dad's_  gonna beat him up too and then I'll beat him up again, and augh! I'm so mad!"   
  
Kaito coughed delicately. "I can, ah, hear that. What happened? Did he get away again last night?"   
  
"NO, you dimwit, did you even look at the news? He dropped the silly gem! He broke it, and it killed this poor little girl's puppy, and on top of THAT, everyone who was near it when it broke has t-t- _tails_ , now!" Aoko choked back a sound that could have been a sob or a scream. Kaito was putting money on the latter.   
  
"Does that mean your dad's got a tail now?" He didn't even have to remind himself to keep the Poker Face well in place, ruthlessly smothering the urge to snicker.   
  
" _Yes_ ," Aoko snapped, "And the whole Task Force, and Hakuba-san, and Heiji-san, and just for good measure, me too!" This last was a shriek.   
  
This time, Kaito snickered. "So the great koko-sei tantei of Japan have gotten themselves tailed, have they?" He giggled at the image. "I thought detectives were supposed to be able to shake their tails easily. Well, I suppose in this case, they'd wag them..."   
  
" _Kai_ to...." Aoko growled warningly.   
  
"Okay, okay, okay!" His own fur-related complaints forgotten, Kaito grinned at the thought of Aoko's face, unable to resist one last taunt. "Don't look at me like that. I promise I'm _inu_ -cent."   
  
"I'm bringing  _two_  mops today," Aoko muttered, before the line clicked dead.   
  
Kaito closed his phone, face shuttering down into a much more serious expression. Teasing Aoko about the gem's unintended side effects was all well and good, but Kuroba Kaito hadn't been at the heist last night. So showing up at school with ears and a tail - well,  _dog_  ears and a tail, rather than his normal pink human ears and his ass that was, undoubtedly, better than any of the girls' - would be a problem. Passing them off as a magic trick didn't seem likely, as Hakuba at least, and Aoko probably besides, would be sure to tug just as hard on them as did Nakamori on Task Force members' faces at heists. But not showing up to school was even more risky, as it would confirm to Hakuba that Kaito had something to hide.   
  
So school it was. Kaito grabbed an old pair of jeans, ones that were too tight, affording too little movement for gymnastics and concealing equipment, and quickly clipped a hole in the bottom, centered between the top edge of the back pockets. Dressing quickly, he put a little product in his hair to keep it out of the way of his ears, then a little product on the fur of his ears to make them a bit glossier, and a bit of rouge to color the insides a little pinker. It would make them look fabulous, and beyond that, the extra rouge would help disguise the prominent, instinct-driven flush of color on their insides - a preemptive attempt to minimize the security risk that the ears represented. Phantom Thieves and delinquent high school seniors alike had no business wearing a pair of furry honesty broadcasters. Which was, to all intents and purposes, the total sum of importance that the new ears and tail held for Kaito.  _I don't get why fanboys like this,_  he groused internally, running lightly down the stairs and passing Jii-chan a quick wave as he headed out the door. His ears lay flat against his head as he thought of all the problems they'd cause if he didn't find a way to get rid of them, and soon.   
  
***   
  
At the cafe nearest to Teitan High, every seat at the tables, as well as those along the bar-height table in the big front window, were filled with students. Fully two-thirds of those present were sporting a new pair of ears and a tail, and the noise level in the cafe was considerably lower than normal, perhaps considering the oversensitivity of most of the patrons' ears. The servers did a brisk business of iced coffee and boba tea to beat back the summer heat, and adult passerby, most of whom had not been in attendance at the Kid heist the previous night, stared in the windows at the collection of dog-eared teens within.   
  
In one corner, Ran, Sonoko, and Aoko sat glumly, curled around their drinks. They had two chairs between them, so Sonoko was perched on Ran's lap, holding on to the back of the chair with one hand for balance as she gestured lewdly with the other. "And I even heard that Kusaragi-san from 3-C is taking some girls to - to - well. You know! With - "   
  
Ran blushed flame red, the inside of her canine ears turning dark pink as they drooped against her head. "That's none of our business, though," she stammered, "And besides, Momoko-chan needs money for her little brother. And I'm sure they're just going to - going to talk, is all."   
  
"Like a geisha," Aoko piped up, "Not like a - a - what're they called."   
  
Sonoko waved this aside. "My point is, we don't know how long this is going to last! And I don't think there's any harm in --"   
  
Ran frowned, pushing at Sonoko's shoulder. "You have a boyfriend, Sonoko! For shame." Aoko nodded her agreement. "Yeah, yeah!"   
  
"And so do you," Sonoko returned snippily, poking Ran on the nose, "And you, too," she added to Aoko, who frowned. "All I'm saying is that since Kaitou Kid-sama--" (her voice fluttered on the name) "--was so generous as to give us these lovely ears and tails, we ought to use them!" Sonoko's cherry-blond tail, long and fluffy, wagged happily behind her, over the side of Ran's lap. Both her companions sighed, Ran rubbing her temples, Aoko considerably more vehement.   
  
"That's just - it - My daddy has a tail!" Aoko complained, looking a little lost. Sonoko nodded, her face betraying nothing; Aoko pushed on, hoping for a more appropriate reaction. "And the Task Force? ...And Hakuba-san, and Hattori-san...?"   
  
Sonoko nodded. "Mmm, mm!"   
  
"...You're missing the point," Aoko sighed. "This is a bad thing! This is not good! Everyone we know has ears now, even--"   
  
"AOKO! Ran!" From across the room, one slim, eagerly waving hand could be spotted above the heads of the crowd. It bobbed closer, and the trio had just recognized the bracelets adorning it before the hand, and the rest of its owner, one of the few in the cafe without extra ears, burst through the pressing wall of customers and grinned happily at their gathering.   
  
"Heiji said I'd find ya here," Kazuha beamed, paying a comforting amount of attention (zero) to the other girls' ears and tails. "I got somethin' to ask you guys! C'mon!"   
  
***   
  
Kaito stuffed his hands in his pockets, shoulders loose as he rambled "aimlessly" across the school building roof, carefully moving away from Hakuba as he wandered. The young detective was out of uniform just as Kaito was, having arranged his jeans as best as he could around the perky, short-haired blond mop of a tail which he had acquired in the last twenty-four hours. He watched Kaito levelly as the magician made his way to an interior rail of the roof and hopped up on it, walking it like a balance beam with little risk except to the vents and cooling engines that were enclosed within the railing's bounds.   
  
"I didn't see you at the heist last night, Kuroba-san," Hakuba began levelly.   
  
"Musta missed me!" Kaito chirped, looking over his shoulder at his classmate with a grin before bending over backwards. His hands braced on the beam behind his left heel, right leg raised high in the air in a perfectly straight line, Kaito threw his weight up, then over, moving his legs with the precision of a clock's hands as first one then the other foot came to rest on the cement beam behind his hands. Standing again, Kaito brushed hair out of his canine ears, wagged his tail at Hakuba, and grinned. "This rail's half as wide's the ones I normally use, when--"   
  
"When you're  _not_  moonlighting as the Kaitou Kid, yes, yes," Hakuba said wearily, covering most of his face with one hand and crossing the other over his chest. "For once, Kuroba-san, I didn't bring you up here to throw darts at your lawful virtue."   
  
"Awwww," Kaito said, propping his chin on his hands and looking comically disappointed. Hakuba's ears went flat, his tail bristled, and he glared at Kaito from behind his spread fingers. Somewhat more cowed by the gesture than he would have been if it had been delivered without canine enhancements, Kaito dropped the face and nodded in deference to Hakuba.   
  
"Go on, Hakuba-san."   
  
"As you clearly have better things to do than to listen to me be dull and  _reasonable,_ " Hakuba continued, and Kaito winced because he deserved that one, "Let me simply inform you that the small child who was bereaved of her dog last night, the spirit of which has clearly been imbued in all of us unlucky enough to get struck by the gem, was named Lily Evans." Hakuba held up a small slip of paper, no larger than a traditional ofuda, between two extended fingers. "The address of her post box is enclosed on this slip of paper. Good afternoon to you."   
  
As Kaito sputtered, Hakuba turned to descend the staircase back into the building, leaving the paper pinched between the closing door and doorframe as he did so. With a frown, Kaito stared at the little slip of white, considering the consequences of taking it, or whether Hakuba's information was even real. For all Kaito knew, the address on the slip was a plant, one more attempt to prove a link between Kuroba Kaito and Kaitou Kid.   
  
But there hadn't been an obituary that morning, though Kid had asked for one, and the death of a dog was taken about as seriously as the death of a cat in urban Japan - that is to say, not seriously at all. Kaito frowned, hopping off the rail toward the doorway. It was worth the risk, even if it ended up being a plant. He couldn't look away from what he'd done with his own carelessness the night before, and he couldn't let a chance to directly approach the bereaved girl slip through his fingers.   
  
A clatter in the staircase, the sound of female voices filtering up the shaft and through the closed door to his ears, made Kaito pause. Then, judging they were far enough away, he darted forward to tug the slip of paper free from the door. Pocketing it, he shuffled away toward the chain-link fence at the roof's edge, within clear view of the door, and looked out over the sunny school campus with a distant gaze, seeing only the girl's tear-reddened face and the dog's blood-dyed throat.   
  
A lightly tanned girl he didn't know with a broad smile and open features led the way onto the rooftop, Sonoko right behind her with Ran and Aoko trailing. They were all talking at once, or seemed to be; Kaito forced his customary smile onto his face in preparation for Aoko's scrutiny, and trotted over to join the group with a wave. "Kuroba Kaito," he said, producing a carnation for the new girl, then one each for Ran and Sonoko as well. "Hello, girls."   
  
"Toyama Kazu--" the new girl began, but was drowned out by Aoko, who suddenly loomed over Kaito's head as though on stilts.   
  
"Don't  _I_  get a flower,  _Ku-ro-ba-kun?_ " she gritted out. Behind her, Ran and Sonoko tittered while Kaito sheepishly produced a full bouquet of carnations and placed them in her arms.   
  
"Kazuha-san," Kaito said, putting a fresh polish on his smile and turning it to her cheerily, "It looks like you're the only one of our merry band who wasn't at the Kid heist last night."   
  
"'Fraid so," Kazuha said. "I came in with Heiji on the train to see the heist, but I had something funny on the train and it didn't settle good, so I had to turn in early last night! Hei-chan wasn't so lucky, and now he looks like a scruffy dog!"   
  
"Kazuha!" Ran chided her, flushing a little in the inside of her silky smooth, pert little ears. "Heiji doesn't look scruffy. He just...well, his fur is a little..." She waved her hand, seeking an alternate word.   
  
Aoko snickered. "Scruffy. It's not just me, Kaito," she explained. "Even --"   
  
Ran squeaked, clenching her fists tightly, and Sonoko edged a step back. Taking that as a sign of a well-informed opinion, Kaito did as well. "HIS opinion doesn't count," she said. "Anyway, Kaito, Kazuha said she wanted to ask you about the heist, since everyone agrees you're the Kid expert. We all guessed you'd be up here."   
  
"Other than Hakuba-san," Aoko pointed out, and the others echoed the sentiment before Kaito got down to the giggly business of telling them all the "safe" details about the heist, playing with the limits of how much he could confide without breaking the illusion of being just a bystander.   
  
Halfway through their talking, another student slipped onto the roof of the school, walking softly over to sit down behind Ran. A thin hand slipped back to lace fingertips with him, and he folded his fingertips into hers, keeping his head down and one ear turned attentively, but gently, to Kaito's voice. The others didn't rustle much when he arrived, used to his comings and goings, and Kaito spared only the smallest flick of a grin in his direction before continuing with his guesses and suppositions. Kazuha was the loudest of the girls, and Ran the quietest, but all four offered their opinions and questions about the method behind Kaitou Kid's heist - and the reason for the sudden outbreak of tails and ears among the onlookers. Ran believed it was because the spirit of the puppy was wishing for a second chance at life through the people who had seen it die; Sonoko was determined that it had been some sort of curse inherent in the shattered gem. Kazuha ventured the suggestion that it was the girl who'd done it.    
  
Afternoon waned toward evening as the group talked, the topic gradually switching over to more mundane concerns like cram school and the upcoming weekend. Tails or no tails, the administration was clearly determined to grind steadily onward, and all the teachers had informed their affected male students that something was to be done about adapting their uniform pants to their new anatomy, posthaste. The boys thought the girls had it easy, but Aoko and Sonoko protested this idea vehemently; tails just meant that their skirts were naturally raised a little higher, encouraging all kinds of attention they didn't want. And there were the hentai to consider, too, Kazuha pointed out, before breaking out in peals of laughter at the realization that when they returned, Heiji would be the only one in Osaka with ears and a tail.   
  
***   
  
The latecomer stayed behind with Kaito as the girls finally said their goodnights and headed down the stairs toward home. Ran hovered last, reaching up to whisper in his ear and smile softly at him, before following Sonoko's food-related prattling down the staircase. As the door snicked shut behind her, Kaito turned to his companion, whose serious, steady blue gaze matched his own in everything except color; whose rounded face and thick chocolate hair reflected his own like a before and after picture showing the influence of a comb and hair gel.   
  
"Hey," Kaito murmured, a flicker of expression crossing his cool features as the other's ears twitched in alert response. "I didn't see you last night."   
  
"Too busy kissing concrete?" Shinichi asked, narrowing light blue eyes at his opponent.    
  
Kaito snorted, turning away from Shinichi toward the orange sunset that cast the lee side of the buildings between itself and his vantage point in sharp black shadow. "I didn't."   
  
"You almost did. If the glider hadn't--"   
  
"The glider  _always_  holds, Tantei-kun," Kid responded, turning halfway back to Shinichi. The glare from the sun and the stark shadow it cast didn't obscure his features, but it served as werelight regardless, helping to change the features that his expression, the tilt of his eyes and mouth, had already altered.   
  
Shinichi clenched his fists at his sides, mouth a thin-pressed line. "I'm not going to tell you how to do your job."   
  
Kid laughed, lifting his face to look down the bridge of his nose at the other. "Except your tone already has, my dear Detective."   
  
Shinichi stepped forward, his frown deepening. "If you're going to endanger yourself for something that was inevitable anyway--"   
  
"I could have caught it."   
  
"It didn't kill anyone, Kid, we had thirty stories to get people out of the way."   
  
"Lily Evans' puppy died,  _Tantei-kun,_ " Kid gritted out.   
  
Shinichi opened his mouth to respond, stopped, and closed it again. One deep breath later, he opened his eyes again, a softer look in them than before. "Of course. I'm sorry, I'd -- If I counted the puppies, too, along with all the other bodies I've found..."   
  
Kid looked away to the sunset, and Kaito looked back. "I know, Kudo. I don't mind."   
  
"I do," Shinichi said, beginning to pace, eyes going distant. "I was treating you like one of my cases, when you're actually one of  _yours_ ."   
  
It struck Kid again how much more mature Shinichi was than himself. Had he been in Shinichi's position, taunted by someone he was trying to express worry over, he would have turned it all into a joke, brushing it off and locking the other person out. Shinichi was turning all his analytical power inwards, cutting apart his own reactions and emotions not seconds after he'd expressed them. The year as Conan had truly matured him.   
  
***   
  
To the list of ten individuals who knew Shinichi's true identity while he lived as a seven-year-old boy named Edogawa Conan, one girl was added at the conclusion of that time in hiding. Mouri Ran, silent and patient sufferer of Shinichi's sudden and unexplained absence, had drawn the line at his sudden and unexplained reappearance. Shinichi, counseled by Heiji and Kaito both, had chosen to let her in on all of it, knowing that Ran was more than intelligent enough to uncover it all by herself anyway, and that it would be more dangerous for her to dig blindly around rather than be told the information she yearned to know in a concise and clear manner.   
  
Included in that package of information had been additional information which even fewer people were party to. Kaitou Kid had been instrumental in making possible the return of Kudo Shinichi, and as a result, Kudo Shinichi became instrumental in making possible the continuation of the Kaitou Kid. He didn't go so far as to help Kid with heists - as Kaito had dryly pointed out to Shinichi, Kid would never accept that help anyway, even if Shinichi were willing to give it (which he wasn't). But when the heists happened, Shinichi was always there, playing the same role that Conan always had, with the extra twist of providing an extra set of eyes and ears against attacks from the shadow organization that haunted Kaitou Kid's work, seeking to steal from him the fruit of his labor, the Pandora, if and when he eventually did uncover it.   
  
Ran was made party to all of this not only because of Shinichi's trust in her, but because of the confessions that she brought to the table as well. When Shinichi laid bare his last year's truths for her, Ran returned the favor, telling Shinichi that she'd never really stopped believing that he and Conan were linked, and that her surety of that fact had never waned, only grown, as the year had gone on.   
  
"The only thing that kept changing," Ran explained to him, "Was how much I could hold myself back for your sake. Sometimes it was just too hard, and I wanted to make you tell me the truth for my sake, because I missed you so much."   
  
Shinichi returned to school at the start of his and Ran's proper senior year, working to simultaneously make up the work he'd missed in his junior year while also completing his senior year work, as well. Hakuba provided himself as a tutor in that regard, supplemented by Ran herself. Shinichi showed his customary aptitude for the material, simply needing a guiding hand to show him what material had been emphasized in class, and what had been skipped over.   
  
Haibara Ai, who chose to remain in her child form even after the apotoxin cure was proven successful by her test case Shinichi, became his link to the Detective Boys. Of course, they couldn't be trusted with Shinichi's secret, or the reasons behind Conan's disappearance. Though he'd entered their lives under a guise of temporary visitation, and the cover story provided on his first day as Conan served well and coherently till his last, Shinichi still felt guilty when confronted with the broken-hearted faces of the three children who had been his partners in work and play through the last year. Ayumi, perhaps sensing his weakness, declared the formation of the Apprentice Detective Boys (And Girls), and Shinichi found himself in a position comically similar to that which he had held as Conan. Careful to act surprised by the "new" technology of the Detective Boys badges, he accepted the gift of his own ("It's Conan's old one! You have to be  _really really_  careful with it, cause it was Conan's and he was our leader!") with all the respect that it was due, and not a little bit of emotion.   
  
So life proceeded exactly like, and differently than, it had for the year prior, and Shinichi often woke up in the mornings shocked that he really could touch the floor with his toes when he sat up, or that the kitchen cupboards were no longer too high to reach without a step-ladder.   
  
***   
  
"Kaito," Shinichi tried again, squinting into the sun that was forming a corona around Kaito's unruly hair and unevenly perked ears, "All I'm trying to say is, even if a puppy had to die, it doesn't mean that you could take the chance that you would, too."   
  
Kaito shook his head. "But the glider  _doesn't fail._  It's-- it doesn't, Kudo."   
  
Shinichi's eyes went hard. "Does she know that?" Kaito blinked, Kid shifted his shoulders to put his face back in shadow, and Shinichi pressed his advantage. "There's no way for her to know that, Kid. And she thought you were going to die last night."   
  
Kid looked down, pulling a scarf from the cuff of his uniform jacket, and began to fold a paper crane from it. "Then she doesn't trust Kaitou Kid well enough."   
  
"She trusts  _Kaito,_ " Shinichi growled, advancing on Kid until the other had to drop his hands and raise his chin, backing up against the fence that bounded the roof. It was old, and sagged in places; the pair of them stood directly in front of one such bellied-out section, and Kid grabbed onto the chain links to either side of him and leaned gracefully, casually, out into the gap, letting the strength of the fence stand between him and a five-story drop. Shinichi stood in front of him, expression scathing.   
  
"You're doing it again," he hissed, reaching forward to grab the open collar of Kid's shirt. Yanking hard, aided by the thief himself, Shinichi dragged his friend back onto the solid support of the roof and dug the fingers of one hand into his hair at the base of Kid's ear, muffling his pained wince with a hard, demanding kiss.   
  
***   
  
They ended up against the staircase column, on the side opposite from the door, sprawled in a half-kneeling, half-sitting tangle of limber boy limbs and half-removed clothing. The firey light from the sunset painted both their skins with a darker glow than either of their pale complexions could offer and shaded their dark chocolate fur a black mahogany shade. Shadows pooled like mercury in the folds of their clothes and the hollows of their throats. Sweat, already coating their skins with a tacky film in reaction to the summer's smothering humidity, rose in fresh beads at their pressure points and ran down the small of their backs into the short fur of their tails as they gasped and bucked against each other.    
  
Shinichi was the one to writhe, twisting against Kid's limber, lithely muscled body with his mouth almost always open to gasp and pant, head thrown back, neck fighting to swallow, eyes slitted shut and glazed over. Kid was the one to indulge, nibbling with fierce teeth and sucking with strong pressure on Shinichi's neck and smooth chest, working his way down to lap at the nipples that still peaked with tension and sensation, despite being rooted in the muscles of a body that had still not recovered from its time as a child.    
  
Shinichi's physique was shot; though he ached to play again, he wasn't going to see the return of his soccer skills for at least another year, one full of heavy-duty strength and muscle training. The series of rapid size changes he'd undergone in the final weeks of Ai's work on the antidote had wreaked serious damage on his joints and bones; prescription-strength supplements and nightly strength exercises for his knees and elbows helped to reinforce the tendons that kept those hinge joints in place. For his shoulders and hips, weight-bearing exercise was the best that he could manage, so Ran, Hattori, and Kaito had sworn off of elevators in solidarity to Shinichi, who could now be utterly worn out simply by climbing five sets of stairs. Hattori seemed to spend more time on their end of the country than his own these days, to support Shinichi at the cases where his old instincts wanted to send him haring off after the perpetrator in a mindless, headlong run that his body could no longer support.   
  
Shinichi grasped blindly for traction at Kid's waist, palm sliding down the thief's waist and over the curve of his ass. It stopped when he hit the base of Kid's tail, a sharp gasp rocking out of Kid's throat as Shinichi wrapped his fist around the short-furred tail and tugged experimentally. Kid buckled, trying to thrust forward and backward at once and ending up just spasming in pleasure, a completely uncontrolled cry muffled at its end against Shinichi's stomach.    
  
From there, spurred by the smug noises from above him, Kid yanked aside the fly of Shinichi's slack pants and took half the detective's cock into his mouth in one motion. The growl that shivered down Kid's throat had Shinichi clawing at Kid's hair, clearly unable to decide whether to push him further down or pull him away. Kid took this as a positive sign and continued driving his partner blind with need by reaching two slim fingers into the vee of Shinichi's fly to pet gently at his smooth scrotum.   
  
Shinichi grunted, a sound Kid that knew meant he'd bitten his lip to bleeding to hold back a scream. Licking around his shaft, Kid took Shinichi deeper, opening his throat to the intrusion with the skill that he'd learned so as to conceal much less pleasureable objects. As the tip of his nose touched down against Shinichi's stomach, barely brushing the smooth skin that rose and shuddered with harsh, unsteady breaths, Kid found himself thankful that Shinichi's body was still so out-of-whack. The hair at the base of his cock was baby-soft, a creamy caramel-brown, and sparsely rooted.    
  
_He's probably still sterile as well,_  Kid reflected idly, working his cheeks and tongue against the bottom and sides of Shinichi's cock with dexterity, putting all his skills in mouth and throat modulation to use for a very different purpose than their original intent of mimicking voices. He'd have to remind Shinichi of that probability once they were done. Ran would likely find it very pertinent, if she hadn't already.   
  
The thought, and its associated visual, made Kid purr in contented satisfaction -- then scramble to swallow, as Shinichi broke the crest of his wave over both of them, warm thighs and stomach pulled taut as bedboards beneath Kid's warmer palms, hand strangely gentle as he dotingly petted Kid's ears on his way down from his orgasm, rubbing the thin fur-lined skin between thumb and forefinger and murmuring nonsense laced with homicide scene terminology.   
  
***   
  
Embarrassingly, Shinichi blinked awake to the sight of Ran's sweet, quietly amused face smiling at him from close distance. She was crouching in front of him, knees demurely turned to the side, left hand bracing herself for balance on Kaito's shoulderblades. The thief, draped over one of Shinichi's thighs and his shirt-tails, slept on blissfully, or at least appeared to.    
  
One of Ran's hands was in Shinichi's hair, brushing sweat-laminated bangs off his face and petting the broad base of one dog ear fondly. Shinichi scrambled to collect himself, pulling his pants closed over his groin so fast that he ended up yanking not only his cock but the base of his tail, too. He winced, fumbling for the zip, but stopped at the touch of Ran's slim, cool knuckles against his cheek. Shinichi looked up into her understanding blue eyes and felt himself lost once again.   
  
"Ran..." he murmured, seeking and apologizing at once. She shook her head, bracing herself with one hand on his shoulder as she crawled closer. Steady on both knees now, she leaned in for a soft kiss, chaste and polite, and yet neither of those things at all. In wonder yet again, as he always seemed to be around her, Shinichi watched her expression change into something playful as she pulled back from him and stroked Kaito's hair fondly.   
  
"Get up, Kuroba-san, you're not fooling anyone." As the magician snickered and pushed himself up onto hands and knees, Ran looked at Shinichi with a smile, finding his hand and lacing her fingers with his own.   
  
"Did you have fun? It's late. You both overslept."   
  
Shinichi flushed pink from his canine ears all the way down to his navel. Ran giggled at that, then leaned down to kiss Shinichi's stomach. He tried to stop her, wincing when he thought about what had probably dried there, but Ran batted his hands away effortlessly and took her time in laying her mouth on the soft curve of his belly, just to the side of his navel where the muscle was softest. Licking delicately, like a cat with an ice cream cone, Ran laved the spot until Shinichi started to shudder and twitch, and Kaito chuckled his approval.   
  
"Was plenty warm up here earlier," Kaito mentioned as Ran worked, palm flat on the cement roof that still held a remnant of the day's radiant warmth. "But nighttime rooftops are no place for that kind of thing."   
  
"You would know," Shinichi sniped, the strength taken out of his words by a soft sigh from Ran below them both. She sat up with a satisfied smile playing across her lips, the warmth and more that filled her eyes for Shinichi's benefit alone.   
  
"Kuroba-san, do you think we might find some time to talk tomorrow? I have something I'd like to discuss with you," Ran said, all politesse and formality. Shinichi couldn't even find the heart to roll his eyes at her act, because for Ran, it somehow  _wasn't_  an act. Kaito, meanwhile, had put himself back together, and stood, charmingly holding out a hand to help Ran up.   
  
"Till tomorrow," he promised her, the glow of sex slowly fading from his face, replaced by his usual trickster's charm. Before he could fully make his escape, Shinichi caught Kaito's arm, pulling him close to place a kiss on his cheek, then let him go. Ran waved happily to his back as he wandered off, walking the railing rather than the flat roof to get him to the doorway that led back down to the world.   
  
When he was gone, Ran sighed and leaned against Shinichi, curling around his arm like a koala on a favorite tree. "Mmmm," she breathed, looking in the direction that Kaito had walked in, then up to the just-past-full moon. " _Did_  you have fun?"   
  
Shinichi flushed again, squirming against Ran, but he knew better than to try to break free. "Why do you always ask me that?"   
  
"Because I want to make sure you're having fun with him, Shinichi!" Ran turned to look up at him. Her face, lit by a combination of moonlight and city glare, was almost unbearably earnest, and Shinichi wondered again how he'd ever had the gall to deceive such a true and honest person.   
  
"I do...have fun...with him," Shinichi admitted carefully.   
  
"With Kid?"   
  
Shinichi flinched. "That's--"   
  
Ran frowned. "Nobody's up here. Nobody's--"   
  
"Nobody we can  _see_ ," Shinichi corrected her, and Ran looked abruptly abashed.   
  
"You're right. So, did you have fun with...him?"   
  
"Yes," Shinichi said again, less sheepishly, and began walking toward the stairwell door. Ran followed, one hand still on his arm. Though any observer might think she was allowing herself to be led, Shinichi knew the truth, one proven again and again as Ran insisted on maintaining physical contact with Shinichi whenever at all feasible. She was simply anchoring him down to keep him from disappearing again. Shinichi knew better to complain, as this was a paranoia he had seeded, watered, and fed. Ran's tail wagged happily as they walked, and he fought down a fierce internal smile at the thought, thankful once again that despite all the odds, he'd found a way -  _made_  a way - to return to her side as an equal.   
  
"Yeah, we did have fun." Shinichi looked up at the sky, trying hard for a tone somewhere in the vicinity of 'innocent'. "After...I yelled at him a bit."   
  
"Yelled at him? Over what?"   
  
Shinichi frowned. "Guy stuff."   
  
"I do not buy that for a  _second_ , mister," Ran laughed, yanking on Shinichi's arm a little bit - just enough to tug his shoulder and remind him that he really couldn't stand up to her, if he ever had been able.   
  
"Errr. Okay, it was kind of about you. And how he scared you last night."   
  
"Oh." Ran frowned, leaning into Shinichi's side for comfort, rather than territory. Shinichi freed his arm and slipped it around her shoulders, hugging her snugly. "Yes, I can see why you would want to yell at him." She paused, ears perking hopefully. "But I hope you didn't yell too hard?"   
  
"It ended with, um," Shinichi skidded to a halt halfway into the sentence, but Ran caught his meaning easily anyway.   
  
"Good! It was angry sex, then?"   
  
He could feel the red blush  _radiating_  from his ears, tail curling sheepishly downward. "No! It was - I - it was just guy sex."   
  
Ran cocked a critical glare at him. "Guy sex can be tender."   
  
Shinichi looked anywhere but her, ears drooping profoundly. "Can we - errr - Ran,  _please_ ."   
  
"You saw me in the bath, Mister Kudo Shinichi. I  _warned_  you I was gonna get back at you for that." Ran stopped by the stairway door and pulled it open, stepping aside to usher Shinichi inside. "After you~!"   
  
Shinichi sighed and obeyed. And as they descended, even though he should have been expecting it, he still yelped when she snuck behind him and tugged on his tail.   
  
***   
  
The next evening, Ran left school with Kaito, returning together to his family mansion. She was escorted in to the sitting room by Jii-san until Kaito returned from his upstairs room, a deck of tarot cards in his hands. As was the informal custom between the two of them whenever they found time for private talks, Kaito shuffled the cards idly, pausing to fan them out every time Ran's light touch lit on the back of his hand. From there she would select a card by touching it, and Kaito would reveal and reflect on it as their discussion continued.    
  
Tonight, the Moon and the Emperor turned over as their discussion, already somber, took Kaito to depths he did not want to think about, much less retell to Ran. His feelings about the botched heist were already painfully clear to her, but Ran gently pressed further anyway, determined to guide her friend and sometimes lover through the murky water to the stable ground which he was certain didn't exist; which she was certain she could find.   
  
"Did you see the puppy afterwards?" Ran asked delicately, laying her hand atop Kaito's constantly-moving ones as he flinched, ever so subtly, from the question.   
  
"I did," he answered, concentrating on the cards in his hands. Left to right riffle shuffle first.   
  
Ran let the silence hang for a while, more comfortable than speaking. "What kind of dog was it?"    
  
Mongean shuffle next. Kaito didn't even have to concentrate on it. He modified it, a dozen cards in, into a squared version of the standard Mongean. That was harder, and kept his attention while he recalled images with the most clinical detatchment he could muster. "Mixed breed. Wire coated, short ears, short tail. Probably twelve kilos. ...Young."   
  
"Gender?" Ran pressed, gripping one of his hands to stillness with a firm clasp of her narrow hand.   
  
"I don't know," Kaito sighed, pulling his hand free. Ran's fingers encircled it again, lacing with his with strength he didn't have the will to fight. "Does it matter?"   
  
"I suppose not," Ran said, "What you've said so far has been enough."   
  
Kaito frowned. The discussion was sour in his mouth, morbid curiosity that led nowhere but deeper into his own guilt. "Ran, is this all you'd wanted to talk with me about?"   
  
Her face took on a pretty frown of thoughtfulness, lips pulled into a mou that, outside its current context, Kaito could have appreciated on a more intimate level. He was a moment from urging her to hurry up and talk or leave when she sighed, closed her eyes on a wince, and peeked one eye back open to smile shyly at him. "This has all sounded all wrong, I'm sure. I wasn't trying to hurt you more, Kaito, I just had to be sure which puppy it was."   
  
The last four words stopped Kaito's retort in his throat; his hands fell still in his lap, the two of cups tipping between them to land face-up. "...Which?"


End file.
